Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Lucknow Placement Interview Questions

• Q1. Being from St. Xavier's and Calcutta, why didn't you pursue CA?
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• Q2. Tell me something about yourself apart from what's there on your resume.
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You are meeting the head of the logistics department of a company. They are involved in both B2B and B2C sides of the business. Talk about what would be the agenda of the meet and the proposition you would take to transform their logistics business.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: Asked me a couple of HR questions including why not CA.

I: Answered and realized he was a CA. He started laughing based on my answer.

C: Followed the CPCC approach.

I: (Stopping in between) Do not follow the conventional case solving models and logically explain the thought process and rationale.

C: What’s the name of company, chief products/ services, their operating cities? Can I also know the current system of logistics:

Internal/External vendors, technology being used for inventory/supply chain/vendor management?

I: The company name is Havells India selling all the current products you’re aware of. They have engagement with multiple outside vendors for delivery. The storage & warehousing is internal, and SAP is the ERP system currently being used by them for all internal purposes.

C: Okay. I have all the information I need. Can I take a minute to analyses the way to go?

The typical supply chain process comprises of the following 4 stages:

Inbound logistics, storage & warehousing, operations, and finally outbound logistics.

If this seems fair, I’d like to explore each stage and discuss the integral parts and deliberate upon the changes/improvements in each stage.

I: Fair enough. Go ahead but be very brief as we don’t have a lot of time. Only focus on the key element in each stage.

C: Sure. Under Inbound logistics, the key component is the number of vendors.

My suggestion here is to have limited but integral vendors with the aim of solidifying long term relationships with the same. This will give them confidence and give us higher bargaining power to cut costs via economies of scale.

C: Under storage & warehousing, and operations, I suggest having an end-to-end application linked to our ERP system for end-to-end internal tracking of orders, dispatches and an overall pulse over inventory.

If time permits, I would like to also talk about the current inventory system we follow.

I: No, let’s ignore that for now.

C: Under outbound logistics, again the number of vendors is important. Also, I’d also like to look at the reverse logistics aspect since electronic goods tend to have a high return percentage, hence would also explore this angle.

I: (Starts laughing and asks me to hold on). At this point, it seems you’re blabbering on and on. Take a minute and tell me what the three most important aspects in this entire process are.

C: (After a minute) The three most important part of this process would be the technology, employees and the current system of processes and operations.

C: Do you have any feedback for me?

I: I think you have a lot of ideas and despite the lack of industry knowledge, you were able to come up with good ideas. The three important aspects were correct, but you missed out on cost. In logistics, cost would be extremely crucial. For future cases, try to be a little more structured. That’s it.

• Q1. Quickly run me through your CV.
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• Q2. Where did you intern? What kind of work did you do? What were your deliverables? Why did you reject the PPO from Goldman Sachs?
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• Q3. In Round 2: How was your previous case? Did you sleep well? Do you want to directly get into a case or care for some chit chat?
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What is going to be the size of the OTT Video market in India by 2025?

(From my Summer Internship, OTT Video in India was my area of research).

Interview 1 (25 mins)
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Introduced himself, told me about his practice at BCG, how long he had worked. Later found out he was an IIML alum. Asked me to introduce myself and quickly run him through my CV.

I: I see some people have mentioned their CGPA whereas yours is not mentioned.

C: Yes, it's usually the IR (Institute Rankers) who chose to disclose their CGPA, I was part of PlaceCom and managing 14 hours of work with Academics and Campus life I feel, a 6.84 was a decent CGPA, considering also that I was specializing in Finance.

I: Tell me more about your Summer Internship with Goldman Sachs. Why did you reject the PPO?

C: Described how the role was not good enough, compensation was on the lower end and already had a job offer in undergrad with similar pay. Described my deliverables during the internship as 2 research reports on Mobile Gaming in India & OTT Video in India.

I: What do you think has been the reason for the boom in OTT Video in India?

C: Reduced handset rates, reduced data charges (entry of Jio in 2016), Rise of Local/regional content & developers are the fundamental drivers.

I: Let’s jump into a case then, “Your client is Media Conglomerate, they want to expand their digital presence, they want you to size the Digital Market, primarily the OTT Video market by 2025.”

C: Asked clarifying questions regarding the Company (found out to be Zee Network), country of operations, current online/digital presence, any segment to focus on for sizing, whether or not should we be looking at a roadmap, constraints w.r.t time and investment.

I: Zee Network has 1% revenues currently from their online/digital operations. Consider all segments (age), forget the roadmap, give me a ballpark revenue figure for the CEO to chase or benchmark by 2025.

C: Discussed my initial approach, Started with Indian Population, split it by Urban & Rural. Next filter of Income (Low, Middle, High), Next filter of Age 0-15 yrs., 15-25 yrs., 25-35 yrs., 35-55 yrs., 55+ yrs. Choose the middle 3 for consideration. Next filter how many would own Smartphones, Next filter of those how many would have active data packages to support Streaming services, of those how many would actually subscribe to Streaming Services.

Now midway realized that OTT Video is not just streamed on Phones but also on Laptops & Smart TVs. Quickly moved to augment my approach by saying that for the purposes of Guesstimate and my previous work with Goldman, our primary research revolved around smartphone users.

Asked whether I should include the Laptop & Smart TV users, but the interviewer urged me to continue having acknowledged the missing customer segments.After arriving at the number of people who would actually subscribe to the services, I mentioned that subscription revenues contributed to almost 20% of total revenues.

OTT Video monetizes primarily by 3 methods SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand), TVOD (Transaction Video on Demand) & AVOD (Advertisement Video on Demand).

AVOD makes about 80% of revenues whereas SVOD (Netflix, Prime Video, Hotstar) make up about 20%. Assumed annual premium of INR 1000 per person and took 30-40% haircut on total revenues due to account sharing practices to arrive at revenue estimates.

I: This seems like a fair approach, what do you think could be a major roadblock to achieving these projected revenues.

C: Investment by Govt, Rollout of 5G, Growth of Local Content. Couldn’t think of more.

I: Data rates cost are decreasing but they still will factor into adoption behavior, data rates would be the bottleneck for the projected growth for the industry.

C: Agreed, that would alter my percentage factors in my guesstimate driving down revenues as people with internet connections may not subscribe to Streaming Apps as their data plans may not be able to service the data requirements in terms of free data, bandwidth, etc.

Your client is Global Pharmaceutical Company, they have come up with a treatment for breast cancer which cures the disease completely. The Company has been in the global market for 10 but recently a local competitor has come up with a knock off and is planning to price it at a discount of 40%. We are tasked to come up with a defense strategy for the client.

Interview 2 (25 min)
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Hi Shivam, how are you doing? Introduced herself and asked me how did my previous interview go?

C: Told her, I was feeling a little anxious and was surprised how quickly the previous interview ended. Hoping that I could keep up the same in this one.

I: Smiled and asked me to calm down, said I’d been going well and to keep up the same. Asked whether I wanted to talk initially or directly jump into the case.

C: (Obviously I wanted to talk) Could you tell me a little bit more your time with BCG and what practice you were a part of.

I: Described her practice, how she coped with work with a 2-year-old kid. Firm was very supportive, in laws also helped out. Now managing work and spending time with family became easier with time.

C: Tried to relate with her, how important spending time with a newborn child could be for a new mom. Talked about how even my mother’s in-laws helped out during her surgery when I was small. Tried to engage in small talk, constantly listening, engaging and empathizing. (Spent almost 10 mins)

I: Okay quickly run me through your CV.

C: Placecom, IIT Delhi, Football, Reading (Fiction/Non-Fiction), Summer Internship from Finance to Consulting.

I: Rejecting a PPO isn’t easy, hopefully you wouldn’t regret it. Okay so let’s jump into the case. “Your client is Global Pharmaceutical Company; they have come up with a treatment for breast cancer which cures the disease completely (I was very happy assuming that it would be a pricing case).

The Company has been in the global market for 10 but recently a local competitor has come up with a knock off and is planning to price it at a discount of 40%. We are tasked to come up with a defense strategy for the client.”

C: Scoped with CPCC. Tried to identify all stakeholders in the procedure. Hospitals, Doctors, Patients & Insurance Providers. Initiated to approach each factor. Misidentified the treatment as a pill, was corrected 10 mins into the case that the treatment was an IV (intra-vein drip) taken at Hospitals. Tried to adopt the customer journey approach to identify areas of disparity for the
client & competitors.

I: Can you stop with this approach and list down the factors, let’s identify the levers and then work toward the solution.

C: Hospitals (Location, Type, Treatments offered, Size, Beds), Doctors (Compensation, Incentives, Relationships with Big Pharma), Patients (Pre-Diagnosis, Diagnosis, Post-Diagnosis phases) to analyse different factors to touch upon & Insurance Companies (Medical Insurance, Terms, Tie-Ups, etc.)

I: Why would Location of Hospitals be of importance?

C: It would be important as even for medical tourism, I would want to maintain & develop relationships with hospitals in major metros (due to density of operations and adjacent auxiliary services).

I: How would existing treatments offered be of relevance while deciding target hospitals?

C: Most major treatments also require pre-operative and post-operative procedures which tie in the entire experience. Customers may need to visit different outlets/hospitals to get necessary pre/post procedures, but if we could somehow include them as a one-stop-shop, this would certainly be able to justify the 40% premium over the local knock-off.

I: You mentioned incentives for doctors, our competitors may indulge in passing on commissions for treatment recommendations, but firm-policy is to not give unethical/morally ambiguous recommendations.

C: We could work to highlight how the competitor is using the same and instead focus on organically retaining relationships by incentivizing Doctors using non-monetary factors.

I: Can you think of any other recommendations which might be helpful in either defending or justifying the price premium for the client since reducing treatment costs isn’t viable?

C: I am not able think of any more suggestions, if you could give me a minute to think.

I: No that’s okay, do you have any questions for me?

C: Was this a real case, and if yes, what were your recommendations?

I: Yes, this was a real case, we went with somewhat similar recommendations where we tried to justify the price premium by making the whole treatment as an integrated experience. This was very helpful. You’ll be hearing from us shortly. Feel free to reach out to me!

• Q1. Are you in Lucknow right now? Tell me more about Manipur (I was in Manipur on the interview day).
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• Q2. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q3. How was your experience working at ZS Associates?
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Our client is a big FMCG player. Their salesforce productivity has been stagnant. The client has come to us to understand if this is good or bad?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: (Repeated the question to make sure I understood it correctly) Before I dive into the case, can you help me understand a few things about the client?

I: Ask what you need but let’s get quickly into the case, rest can be answered during the case solving.

C: Can you please help me understand what the client means when it says salesforce productivity. Is it Sales/Number of people in sales force?

I: You can take it to be Sales/ Cost of the sales force.

C: Okay. Since when has the productivity been stagnant? Also, have competitors also seen this?

I: Since last year. We don’t know about competitors.

C: Can you tell me a little more about the company? How old are we? How do we sell our products and to whom?

I: We are a very old company; the largest player in the market. We sell our products directly to retailers in the market who sell them to end consumers.

C: What is the work of the people we employ in the salesforce? Visit stores or calls or…?

I: The work of the sales force is to visit stores and get orders from the retailers. I think you have got all the right questions. Let’s get into the case now.

C: I would like to look at two things here: total sales and cost of sales force. Do we have something specific in mind to start with or can we go one by one through both?

I: In the interest of time let us look at the cost of sales force only. We can assume that the total sales and number of retailers have increased over the years.

C: Sure. Since the total sales have increased and productivity has remained stagnant, the cost of the sales force must also have increased. We can look at the number of people in our sales force and how much we pay each employee.

I: Correct. Let’s assume that the number of people has remained the same.

C: Okay. So, are we spending more per employee now?

I: Yes exactly.

C: I would break down how much we spend on a person into Salary, Extras, Commissions & Training Cost.

I: That is fine. Tell me if the increase is a good or bad thing?

C: With time the cost we must spend on employees might have increased. What we can do is increase our sales.

I: Why do you think our costs increased per employee?

C: Promotion of existing employees, people becoming expert in understanding the compensation scheme and earning more, training cost increases, market correction (Based on competitors & inflation rate).

I: What can you compare the increase to in order to check if the increase is justified?

C: Competitor compensation, Inflation Rate, Wage rate in the country, Index representing amount required to lead a life with good standard of living.

Your client is a glass bottle manufacturer in Germany. They manufacture bottles for juices & alcohol. The market is growing at a rapid pace and the client wants to expand its capacity. Three options are available setup plant in Germany, import goods from India, or import goods from China. What should the client do?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: (Repeated the question to make sure I understood it correctly) Before I dive into the case, can you help me understand a few things about the client?

I: Let’s take them up during the case. First start with things you will look at to come to the decision.

C: We can do a qualitative and quantitative analysis to decide which option is better in the long run. Do you want me to proceed with this approach?

I: Go ahead.

C: For the qualitative side of things, I will look at two things: Micro Factors & Macro Factors involved. Under micro factors I will look Cost (Both initial one time & landed cost per unit including transport & duties), Quality of bottle, Turnaround time, and Freedom (risk & independence).

Under macro factors I will look at Legal aspect & country relations. Does this look comprehensive, or should I add more factors?

I: Looks good. What is the most important factor while deciding?

C: Cost would be important.

I: Yes, for initial investment government is giving us some subsidy to set up so we will add a cost of USD 0.5 per bottle for those manufactured in Germany; others don’t have any initial cost. Let’s look at the cost per unit in detail.

C: Sure, apart from the initial investment the per unit cost will have components of raw material, labor, transport, taxes & duties, utilities/overheads.

I: Can you tell me which country will have an advantage in each of the factors you just mentioned above?

C: Sure, material will be available in cheap in China & India; cheaper labor will be available in India; transportation cost of goods from China and India to Germany will be high while if manufactured in Germany the transport cost will be low.

I: Right, say if the cost of making a bottle in Germany in USD 2.5, landed cost of bottle from India is also USD 2.5 & landed cost of bottle from China is USD 2.2. For China & India, the order will have to be placed at least 4 weeks in advance. What should the client do?

C: Does the Germany cost include USD 0.5 we decided to include earlier?

I: No, including that per bottle cost will be USD 3 in Germany.

C: The difference is not much and is of fixed cost which will not be relevant in long term, and we are also getting support from government. If we go ahead with our own plant we will have lower risk, better quality & better turnaround time. The client should go ahead with setting up the factory in Germany.

I: Right, but the CEO went ahead and partnered with India. Can you tell me a few reasons why he would have done that?

C: Few reasons might be:

a) Market expansion to India in long run

b) Technology learning to reduce bottle cost (India can supply at USD 2.5 despite high transport cost)

c) Earlier relation with the company

d) Government support from India

I: Yes, market expansion is what the CEO was thinking about. Let’s end the case here, all the
best!

• Q1. How has your IIM Lucknow experience been so far?
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• Q2. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q3. Why did you join IIM Lucknow?
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Your client is a bank based out of India and wants to explore "Buy now Pay later" model (e.g., EMI). Explore this opportunity for the bank.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Your client is a bank based out of India and wants to get into "Buy now Pay later" model.

Explore this opportunity for the bank.

C: Asked more about the problem statement, objective and about the bank.

I: The client is a large private sector bank. The objective is to explore this opportunity in the e-commerce space as the industry has grown at a fast pace, especially due to Covid-19.

All the banks and fintech companies are competitors and the end user would be a normal e-commerce customer. The products of the bank are like a large commercial bank.

C: Are there any constraints in terms of time frame or money?

I: Must be done in timeframe like 6 months.

C: We can start evaluating the decision by exploring the market attractiveness of the buy now pay later industry.

I: (Interrupts) No that is fine. The bank has done that already and wants to enter this market.

Let's look at the ways to enter this market.

C: To enter the market we can investigate the following options:

1. Acquire a Fintech company already in this space

2. JV with Fintech companies

3. Direct Tie-up with E-commerce websites

Mentioned ways to evaluate each of these options and gave suggestions.

I: Okay, this is fine. Let's say that the bank decides to go with the 3rd option of "Tie-up with E-commerce websites".

How will you assess the customer coming on the E-commerce website in terms of credit risk?

C: Mentioned credit risk modelling and the machine learning models being used by some banks and FinTech's.

Discussed about the various metrics that can be used to evaluate customer's credit risk e.g., buying behavior on the e-commerce platform, payment methods used, frequency of buying/cancellations, credit history, credit score etc.

A global tools manufacturing company wants to become one of the top 3 players in India in the next 18 months. What will be your strategy for the same?
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: (Gave all the case information in one go in the initial 2 minutes)A global tools manufacturing company wants to become one of the top 3 players in the next 12 months. What will be your growth strategy for the same?

Currently the company has 1.5% market share, whereas the top 3 players have 60% market share in total (35%, 15% and 10% market share). The company has a national presence with 100 + dealers/hardware stores. The company has been in the country for more than 5 years.

There are no constraints in terms of budget.

C: Mentioned the various growth levels a company generally has on the organic and inorganic front. Since such a steep growth was required in a shorter period, it suggested that using inorganic growth levers seemed appropriate here.

I: How can the company grow inorganically?

C: Briefly discussed about M&A, JV, partnership.

I: What factors would you consider while deciding which company to acquire?

C: Mentioned the various pre-merger and post-merger factors that should be considered. There was a discussion around which of the top 3 companies should be acquired basis the above factors and synergies. There was also a discussion around how the client should rebrand itself after acquiring one of the top players.

• Q1. Tell me something about yourself.
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• Q2. (Among other points, mentioned travelling as a hobby) Any particular place/incident that is your favorite?
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• Q3. (Mentioned Sweden) Do you know how Sweden has handled the pandemic situation?
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Client is an IT major in India. They are doing well but have sub optimal top line growth compared to their peers. The sales force productivity is declining. Help them increase the same.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C: I wanted to ask some questions to get a better understanding. When you mention IT major, can I assume a company like TCS? What exactly do you mean by top line growth?

I: Yes, assume a company like TCS or Infosys. Top line is revenue growth.

C: What are the revenue streams for the company? What is the role of the sales force?

I: The company provides IT services to other firms (B2B). The salespeople are linked to accounts verticals. For large accounts, there is one person who acts as the single point of contact. The more junior salespeople are mapped to verticals like banking etc. The sales force is divided into hunters and farmers. Hunters are responsible for bringing in new clients while farmers are responsible for handling existing clients. They manage to bring in a revenue of 8-10 million a year. Productivity is measured as the amount of revenue per salesperson.

C: Thank you. Now that I have a fair understanding of the situation I would like to jump into the case. Since the revenue per salesperson is decreasing, this could be due to 2 reasons: we are not getting new clients (hunters), or we are not engaging well with or enough with our existing clients due to which they are leaving us.

I: The hunters are producing okay but there are too many hunters which is leading to lesser revenue per person (1-2 million per year). Farmers have low productivity.

C: If we were to focus on farmers, there could be two reasons why their productivity is low. Either the existing clients are leaving us (account churn rate is high) or they are unable to expand the existing accounts.

I: Right, they are unable to expand existing accounts. Why do you think this is happening and what can be done?

C: They can keep track of any new opportunities within their existing clients, expanding into other areas not already covered by the firm. The SPOC must keep track of any such opportunities that might come up.

I: Anything else?

C: The salespeople must pitch the value proposition of the firm and their USP in order to encourage the clients to give more business to the firm. They can give incentives to the clients in terms of monetary or other means as well. They should reach out to the right people within their client firms in order to land the message well.

The client is a petrochemicals company. The promoter is involved in the exploration and production of oil and produces around 200,000 barrels of oil a day (a sizeable amount - about 25% of India's production). The oil he produces is significantly discounted. Help him add value to his oil.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

I: Let us do a case. The client is a petrochemicals company. The promoter is involved in the exploration and production of oil and produces around 200,000 barrels of oil a day (a sizeable amount - about 25% of India's production). The oil he produces is significantly discounted. Help him add value to his oil.

C: Sure. I wanted to ask a few questions to understand this better. Where is our client based out of? What does the value chain of his business look like?

I: The client is India based. He is involved in the production of crude oil in India and transferring it to 4-5 refineries. His production facility is present in Rajasthan and he delivers oil to one refinery in Mathura, two in Gujarat, and one in the coastal area in Mumbai.

C: In this case, is there a way to set up a production facility closer to these refineries?

I: This process has a long lifecycle wherein it takes 3-4 years to find the oil and then a few more years to start the drilling process. Hence, this is a process of 3-7 years and not very feasible.

C: Alright understood. Next, I want to understand, when you mentioned that the is oil is discounted, how much is it discounted?

I: The known price of Brent crude is $55 per barrel and producers can sell their oil at either a premium or discount to Brent. Our client sells at a discount of $10 a barrel. This is not acceptable to him and he wants to know how to monetize his oil better.

C: Is there a particular reason for why his oil is being discounted?

I: The oil that our client transports are heavy or medium oil. It is a waxy oil which makes the transportation and receiving process cumbersome. There is also a high presence of Sulphur content.

C: Thank you. I think I have a broad understanding now and would like to dive into the case. In this situation, I think there are two areas we can broadly focus on: looking at the current refineries that the client is delivering to and how the transportation process can be improved or looking at identifying and delivering to newer refineries.

I: Identifying new refineries will be tough to make practical. Is there anything else he can focus on?

C: He can expand his business into setting up his own refinery.

I: Yes, that is an option he can explore. In terms of the yield of the crude slate, 45% is petrol and 20% is diesel. There is an additional realization of $20 for petrol and $30 for diesel. For example, for a crack of $20 he will realize $75. What is the return per year the client can hope to get? Assume the plant is closed for 15 days a year.

C: Performed calculations. Total amount = $1.05 billion/year.

I: Great. What are some other options the client can explore in his existing setup?

C: There are two issues with the transportation as you mentioned. The first one was excess wax. Can we somehow modify the way we transport the oil to fix this?

I: We deliver the oil through pipelines. What can we do to reduce the wax?

C: We can maintain the oil at a certain temperature so as to prevent wax from forming.

I: Right, so we can have heated or insulated pipes. What else?

C: Can we use the sulfur content in the oil?

I: We can also create naphtha from the crude. We will get 10% yield regularly. This can increase to 20% but will reduce the yield of petrol and diesel by 5%. Each ton would cost $145. Would this be a feasible option? I started calculating but the interviewer stopped me in between.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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• Q2. Explain your work at ISRO.
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• Q3. Why did you leave ISRO?
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• Q4. Why MBA? What are you focusing on? Are you part of any CCA?
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Your client is a TIC: Testing, Inspection and Certification Company. They are looking to incorporate IoT to improve their offering. Provide suggestions for the same.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Do you know what is IoT?

C: Yes, it is basically a set of hardware/devices connected to each other via the Internet and are in communication.

I: Yes. So, your client is a TIC: Testing, Inspection and Certification Company. They are looking to incorporate IoT to improve their offering. Provide suggestions for the same.

C: So, we need to provide suggestions for how a TIC company can make use of IoT technology to further improve their service.

Before I start, I would like to understand a few things. What are the major customers for our company and what are the types of certifications that they provide?

I: There are 2 major types of services they provide:

(1) Railway Tracks
(2) Shop Floor Machines.

C: Great. May I first focus on the Railway track inspection service and then come to the Shop Floor Machines?

Are there any Budget and timeline constraints?

I: No budget constraints, timeline: as soon as possible.

C: There are 2 ways in which we can upgrade our Railway track inspection service -

a) Improve our existing service by using IoT to increase the efficiency of testing and inspection, reducing the lead time for the whole certification process. This would help us differentiate our offering from others

b) Secondly, we can expand our offering from 1 time certification service to a continuous health monitoring service. Here, we can use sensors connected by IoT to regularly monitor the health of the tracks and provide pre-emptive warnings.

I: Okay, that sounds good. But how will you explain it to the higher management? What are the factors you consider while presenting them the solution?


C: I would present the following analysis,

a) Amount of initial investment required.

b) Amount of increase in variable costs.

c) Expected increase of revenue due to improving existing service.

d) Expected revenue from continuous health monitoring service.

e) Break-even n ROI analysis.

f) Long-term implications, expected life for technology etc.

• Q1. Tell me about yourself.
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Your client is Facebook. They have recently started WhatsApp Pay and want to become the top 2 payment gateways in India. Please help them.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

I: Tell me about yourself.

C: Told already prepared answer.

C: Asked about the company, product, competitors, clarification on “Top 2” and any time/financial constraints.

I: Explained about the product. Competitors are GPay and PhonePe with a total market share of 70% followed by Paytm at 10%.

The expectation is to gain at least 40% market share in next 3 years and there are no financial constraints.

C: Broke down the problem into payments by individuals and businesses. Was told to concentrate on Individuals. Further divided into P2P and P2B transactions.

First discussed about P2B transactions and including features that are present in competitors but absent in WhatsApp Pay and then some new features that are not even present in competitors.

I: Great suggestions. You might have seen that a payment is successful only when the sender and the receiver both have set up their WhatsApp Pay accounts.

How can we increase the customer base?

C: Suggested in-app advertisements (limited), cashback/discounts on payments via WhatsApp Pay as well as partnerships with online marketplaces to offer discounts. Also, set up a strong referral program to incentivize existing customers to pitch the product on Facebook’s behalf.

General introduction and exchanged pleasantries. Let’s solve a case. Shared his screen containing some numbers related to performance of a telecom company like different revenue streams (Fixed line, mobility, enterprise), revenue growth, revenue share, EBITDA %, market growth rate, etc. Identify the financial health of the company and suggest recommendations if something is wrong.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Found annual EBITDA % and revenue. Asked about many other factors and found out that the company has taken on a lot of debt and the interest expense is higher than revenue.

I: Good. How will you improve the financial health of the company?

C: Asked some questions related to the industry and the company and then suggested some recommendations for each revenue line.

Your client is an industrial automation giant. They manufacture train wagons, digital hoardings and streetlights. They are looking to design a software offering for the future, something that would be relevant for the era of self-driven vehicles.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Asked questions related to exact specifications of software offering and general CPCC.

I: So, the software offering that the company is looking to design is a controlling equipment. The company has a presence all over the world.

Looking at the products what do you think could be the customers?

C: Could be governments and city authorities.

I: Right. You can disregard any competition for now.

C: Software offering for streetlights and traffic lights could make use of image processing. Streetlights that would switch off if no movement is detected for a long time.

For traffic lights, the timer can be made dynamic depending on the traffic at each side of the light.

For digital hoardings, depending on available information, they can be customized to show targeted advertisements to the passing vehicles.

Also, these hoardings can be integrated into screens in the self-driving vehicle.

The company can also look to design automated vehicle carriers that would be able to transport multiple cars from one location to another.

C: Is this a case that you have worked on before?

I: Yes. We got this case some time ago.

We thought to design an application like Uber but the difference being that you would input your starting and end location and automatically different vehicles would be assigned to take you from X location to Y.

So, cars trains, buses, etc all would have information about your location, etc. and all vehicles being interconnected would automatically create the route for you and book the vehicles for the journey.

Client is a steel manufacturing company. It was acquired as part of the bankruptcy process as a bankruptcy asset.

They need your help in turning them around. Please advise.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: Who bought the company?

I: The new owner, details of whom are not relevant.

C: What are their targets?

I: They paid 1 billion dollars for the company and took a loan for the same. They need to pay back the loan plus interest in the next 3-4 years.

C: Where does the company have its operations?

I: East India.

C: How many plants?

I: 1 plant.

C: What is the current performance of the company?

I: Negative 5% EBITDA.

C: Who are their key customers? I imagine them being in the B2B space.

I: Yes.

C: Where are they in the value chain? Do they have mines for raw materials and then manufacture steel? How do they sell it?

I: They do not have mines for the raw material. They procure the raw material and then manufacture steel. Then the steel is manufactured into a finished product and then sold.

C: And selling is via sales reps?

I: Yes.

C: Got it. I will just take a couple of seconds here to gather my thoughts.

C: Alright, since we need to pay back our loan, we need to improve our profits. In order to do that we can either increase our revenues or look at reducing costs. Is there a particular bucket you would want me to look at first?

I: We will look at both but let’s start with costs.

C: With costs, I would look at the value chain and try to bring down costs at each stage.

I: Fair enough.

C: To start with there will be procurement costs, then processing, then distribution, sales and marketing and after sales costs.

I: Why after sales costs?

C: To service any requirements the customers have post sales.

I: The product in our case is a “sariya” (steel rod). There won’t be any after-sales costs. Chuck that.

I: What other costs would you look at?

C: I think I missed transportation and logistics costs.

I: Right.

I: Let’s move ahead. Pick any one cost bucket and tell me ways to reduce costs.

C: I would look at procurement costs first.

I: Sure. So, our client procures two raw materials. One is iron ore, and the other is coal. Coal is imported from Australia and Iron ore is procured from Indian mines. Take any one raw material and let’s begin.

C: I’ll look at Coal first since we are procuring it from Australia.

I: Ok. What are the 3-4 levers you would focus on in order to reduce costs?

C: Firstly, I would look at why are we importing this from Australia and not from any other mine in India.

I: This is not available in India.

C: Alright, so why Australia particularly. There would be countries which are closer to India from where we can procure. This would reduce transportation costs.

I: Fair enough, which other countries would you suggest?

C: I would look at other Southeast Asian countries or African countries. Probably prioritize Asian countries due to proximity.

I: Any country in particular? We know Australia is rich in minerals, but which Asian country has such mineral resources? You would have heard about this in the news some days back.

C: I haven’t been following the news recently but based on my previous understanding: Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia come to mind.

I: Yup, Indonesia is what I was looking for. Carry on.

C: The next lever I would look at is the number of orders that we are making.

I: Right. So, we currently order 16 shipments of 30,000 tons each. So, the total requirement is for 480,000 tons a year.

C: How is the coal consumption pattern? I am asking this because based on this we could look at either increasing / decreasing the number of orders depending on shipment costs and inventory storage costs.

I: Coal is consumed continuously. No trend as such. But why do you say by reducing the number of orders we can save on costs?

C: The decision on optimum number of orders depends on two types of costs: inventory storage costs and ordering costs / shipment costs.

I: What are ordering costs? There is nothing called ordering costs.

C: By ordering costs I meant to place an order someone would have to sit and place it manually. In addition to it within ordering costs I am also including the shipping costs.

I: Okay, the costs for physically placing the order are negligible. Let’s focus on shipping costs.

C: Alright. With lower number of orders, the ships will have to make less trips. Hence in essence we would be saving on the fuel costs for the additional trips.

I: How? I still don’t get it.

C: So, let’s say that we earlier had 16 trips with 30,000 tones. Now we will have 8 trips with 60,000 tones being carried.

I: Yes, so how will you save on costs?

C: So, less trips would mean less money paid overall to the logistics provider.

I: Siddharth, you are fudging this. Don’t give me high level answers. You should be able to defend your point when challenged, so think hard and let me know how we will save costs.

C: Probably with bigger shipments we can rent out space in bigger vessels where the costs would be shared with other manufacturers as well.

I: Okay, let’s stop. I was thinking that you would mention we would have less costs per tonne as bigger ships have better fuel efficiency as compared to smaller ships. It is like the car and truck case where trucks are more efficient than cars in transporting. Let’s continue.

C: Got it. Next, we could look at the price per tonne being charged by the supplier. We could look at entering in long-term contracts to reduce prices.

I: Please elaborate.

C: So currently it might be the case that we are ordering coal on a per-year basis. Since the company owners now have a target timeline in mind, we could look at entering in a contract for the next 3-4 years with our supplier for coal.

Since we would be guaranteeing the demand for coal for the next 3 years to the supplier, there will be less risk for the supplier in terms of demand uncertainty and hence he would be able to give us a better rate per tonne of coal.

I: Makes sense. Let’s move onto the revenues now. How can we increase revenues?

C: To increase revenues, I would look at Price and volumes both. I will start off with ways to
increase volumes.

C: Before starting though, I just wanted to understand who our current customers are.

I: Contractors of NHAI.

C: Alright. So, we are catering only to the public sector. Any reason for this?

I: The size of the pie is huge and so it seems attractive.

C: Ok but have we investigated the private sector? Why aren’t we selling to them?

I: Not yet. That is a fair point, and we should be doing that.

C: Alright. So, in terms of our current customers, what market share do we have?

I: 2-3%.

C: Ok. So now I will look at why do we have a low share here and then think of ways to improve it.

I: Got it. But to make the discussion more pointed, tell me whether we should focus on: the government sector or private sector?

C: We currently have a 2-3% share in the public sector. I believe one of the reasons could be that we have a bad image in the market due to the fact that we are a bankruptcy asset.

My understanding of the public sector is that they would need to have dealings with a well-known and credible brand because at the end of the day they are answerable to the public. In addition to this, I believe the ordering cycle in the public sector is larger because they go through the tendering process which is very lengthy and places high thresholds on the quality of products.

The private sector on the other hand will have shorter buying cycles and the quality restrictions or levels will be lower as at the end of the day they would need to minimize their construction costs. Hence, I believe the private sector would be a better segment for our client.

Client is a ropes and nets manufacturer. Has been seeing growth rates of 3-4% and wants to target 15%. Help them.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate] 

C: How long have they been in business?

I: Decades.

C: What are the different products that they have?

I: Fishing nets and other sorts of ropes. For this case let’s focus only on fishing nets.

C: What market share do they have? Which markets?

I: 70%. Indian market only.

C: What sort of customers do they cater to? All types of fishermen?

I: Yes, they have a whole range of fishing nets and hence they sell to both small and big fisherman.

C: What are the timelines they are looking at for the 15% growth?

I: Next 3 years.

C: I’ll just take a couple of moments here to come up with a structure. To increase revenues, I’ll first look at trying to increase our market share within the Indian market and with the same set of products.

Then I’ll look at what other markets we could expand to. Finally, I’ll also look at what new products we can launch in order to increase revenues.

I: Fair enough. Let’s proceed.

C: To increase existing revenues I’ll look at ways to increase both prices as well as volumes. I’ll start with prices. Currently what sort of a pricing strategy do we follow?

I: We have a product which is of higher quality and hence we can charge a 5% price premium.

C: Got it. Since we already have a price premium, it seems tough to increase prices as we already have a 70% share. I’ll move on to strategies for increasing volumes.

I: Fair enough.

C: To increase volumes, I would first like to know that the 30% market that is occupied by the competitors, who are the sort of customers and who are the key players?

I: The other players are local players and consequently the customers are smaller scale fishermen.

C: So, it seems that for the smaller fishermen segment, the value proposition of local players is more attractive. That could be because they might have a cheaper product, or they might just be more accessible in that region, or it could just be an issue with brand awareness.

To tackle these issues, we could partner with more distributors/retailers to increase our reach, provide better trade margins to our channel partners, introduce a new product line for smaller fishermen and charge a lower price and finally rollout promotions specifically for these sorts of customers to improve awareness.

I: Okay. What else?

C: Another way to increase volumes is focusing on the frequency of purchase. Since you mentioned that ours is a high-quality product, I would assume that the lifetime of a net would be high.

To increase frequency, we could focus on modifying the quality of nets to have a shorter lifetime.

I: Wouldn’t this be exactly opposite of our value proposition leading to customers shifting to a different brand?

C: Not exactly, since we have been in the business for decades and have a 70% market share, we would have a huge chunk of brand loyal customers and hence shifting to a different brand does not seem likely.

I: Fair enough. What else?

C: Apart from the Indian market, we could look at entering other countries.

I: Before evaluating that, let’s estimate the size of the Indian market.

C: Okay. There would be two markets for fishing nets: coastal and Inland fishing. I’ll estimate the size of the coastal market and then add a certain percentage for inland fishing.

I: Lets focus only on the coastal market.

C: Alright, I’ll start off with the population of India. Considering 1.2 billion people, I’ll only consider half the population since we have a coast only in the southern part of India.

So, we now have 0.6 billion people. To estimate the coastal population, I’ll consider the state of Maharashtra. In Maharashtra we have 7 out of the 35 districts on the coast so approximately 20% of the population lives on the coast. Accordingly, we now have 0.6*0.2 = 0.12 billion people.

Dividing by 4 for the number of families, we have 0.03 billion families or 30 million families. Out of these coastal families about 50% would be involved in agriculture and about 50% of them would be involved in fishing which gives the total number of families as 7.5 million. Each family will need on average 2 fishing nets and hence 15 million nets is the total demand.

Factoring for the life of a net and considering 5 years as the average life, we have 3 million nets per year. Considering 1000 Rs as the average price, we have sales of 3 billion or 300 crore.

I: Right, this is very close to the actual amount. One last question: do you think the client can achieve 15% growth?

C: Since the client currently has 3-4% growth, even after following the above-mentioned strategies, it will be very tough to achieve this sort of growth in the Indian market.

If we expand to other geographies, then it’s a possibility but not in the Indian market alone.

Hello, please introduce yourself.
[Please note that I stands for Interviewer and C stands for Candidate]

C- Answered the already crafted answer mentioning my educational background, work experience, projects handled and few hobbies.

I- What is scrum & agile? (Was asked this as I have a relevant background in agile development) How is this different from the normal processes?

C- Talked about the iterative cycles and the ability to deliver faster and accommodating changes in a repetitive manner.

I linked this to one of their leadership principles of customer obsession and said we could cater to customer requirements better and help in satisfying their demands better.

I- Mention a few use cases you wrote for your team? How did you finalize the required use cases? Explain in detail the entire research process & findings?

C- Spoke about client interactions, prototype development, testing processes and multiple stage evolution process which goes into writing and finalizing the use cases. Note: The interviewers were more interested in judging how confident and thorough you were with the processes.

Will talk about the cases now.

I- There has been an increase in the volume of the merchandise being returned from one of the locations. Please select one of the categories you frequently shop in and identify the problem which could lead to it?

C- Talked about incorrect deliveries, wrong look and feel, size issues, sabotage.

I- Prepare an itinerary to Venice in INR 75000.

C- This was a very small budget. So I had to accordingly plan all the necessities like visa, accommodation, food, etc. Note: They were trying to look at how well you schedule and deal with scarce resources.

I- Do you have a rough understanding of the backend supply chain of Amazon. Was given a case to identify the last-mile delivery process. How that could be improved in the coming times. Perspective with respect to Indian markets and supply chain.

C- Tried using the supply chain of Amazon to pinpoint on the nodes which could be a problem. Spoke mainly about tech integrations to resolve the last-mile delivery problems.